I'm sorry I've been so elusive these last couple of days, as the last thing on earth I want to do is leave my former Ghost Troop chaplain waiting when he wants to meet. Alas, though, I can't help it! My cell phone has been misbehaving, and I just received your kind messages inviting me into Houston to have some coffee at one of our old hang-outs.

I was wondering whether you were still coming to Houston for a brief annual visit, and appreciate that, now that you're here, everyone in the Bayou City wants a bit of your time! The majority of the "official" world likes to say that I'm an off-beat, off-base ex-intelligence officer, but the fact that the Ambassador to Qatar would favor me with repeated calls to get together and discuss infowar argues strongly to the contrary, and for this continued distinction from you I’m most grateful!

As Ghost Troop has enjoyed a great recruiting spell lately, there are many readers to our ongoing and open correspondence who don't know you yet, so allow me to make introductions:

"...it reminds me of the eulogy that Rabbi Yakov Perin gave for Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli settler who murdered 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1994. He said, “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” ....I want to say that it's very deeply painful to me as a Palestinian that while Palestinians in Gaza are demonstrating,...to urge the resistance not to release the soldier until their prisoners and hostages held by Israel are released,... what all Israelis have to realize is that the age of colonialism has ended." -- Ali Abunimah

A weekly 30 minute review of news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio. With times and freqs for listening at home. 2 files- broadcast and slow-modem streaming. Free to rebroadcast. China, Spain, Netherlands, Cuba, and Russia.

Bush, during his two terms as Texas governor, oversaw the executions of 152 people. If he’s a war criminal, and guilty of causing the deaths of captives at Guantanamo and elsewhere, it would be poetic justice for him to follow them on the long walk.